There were many, many thoughts swarming his brain as Jaebum took his hand, most of them chastising himself for being so rude and a couple whispering ‘Never wash that hand again.’ The way he had greeted Jaebum was something Youngjae wish he could re-do, despite the fact that the other still took his hand. Youngjae simply found his tone a tad too harsh and who the hell greets someone for the first time with their name? 

Apparently he did.

“So, Youngjae...” 

Jaebum brought him back as he let go of his hand and proceeded to sit down adjacent to where Youngjae was rather dumbly standing. 

“Coffee, right?” He raised his eyebrows while smiling, not as bright as before, Youngjae noted. In the coming days, he would learn what each of Jaebum’s smiles meant, as odd as that may sound. He would eventually learn that the smile that Jaebum had on now, was just a polite smile, something like his mother would do when she spoke to her sister. A polite, but an ‘Okay, get on with it.’ smile. 

“Ah, yeah, right. Sorry.” Youngjae smiled a bit back, feeling silly for just standing there blankly. He touched his jacket’s right pocket, making sure for the fiftieth time to make sure that yes, he had brought his wallet. “Just black?”

Jaebum looked over Youngjae’s shoulder, presumably to look at the menu propped up on the wall. His eyes narrowed, trying to focus in on the chalk that had been smudged through out the day. Youngjae took this opportunity to take in Jaebum’s features without a filter. It was unreal, seeing him in the flesh, the few earrings he had on swaying as his head tilted, and Youngjae’s heart nearly gave out as Jaebum bit his lip. Either he knew what he was doing (which was torturing Youngjae’s poor, homoual soul,) or he was having a difficult time figuring out what he wanted.

“Actually,” Jaebum finally looked away from the menu, and Youngjae quickly composed himself by smiling, “An Americano would be good. Is that fine?”

‘Of course it is, oh my God. If you wanted this whole cafe I’d take out a loan and buy this place for you.’ “Sure, I’ll be right back then.” He stood there for two seconds longer than he should have, because Jaebum looked at him quizzically which led to Youngjae realizing what he was doing, before he pivoted and made a bee line toward the counter. 

As he ordered, unaware of the clearly amused look on Jaebum’s face as he watched Youngjae, the boy mentally prepped himself for the coming conversation. 

Choi Youngjae was not going to be a stupid, stuttering fool. 

So as he received the two beverages and headed back to the table, he kept telling himself to stay focused and not let his mind wander. It had become a problem in the past week, and there was no doubt that it would only be increasingly problematic as he hung around Jaebum. 

Setting down the americano in front of Jaebum, Youngjae apologized quietly, “Sorry for the wait.” 

Jaebum’s head jerked up, and he blinked, clearly too concentrated with whatever was going on with his phone. “Oh, no, it’s fine. Don’t apologize.” He paused, checking the contents of the mug, and he grinned, “You said this place was good, so if it’s not, I’m holding it to you.” 

Youngjae settled into his chair, and as he lifted his mug, a sharp retort came to him but he had to stop himself from being like that on the first meeting. Instead, he shrugged, “You trusted someone over the internet, remember.” And proceeded to sip his way too hot “oh God why did I do that now my tongue’s burnt” coffee.

Okay, so maybe that wasn’t the best thing to say either, but Youngjae literally couldn’t think of anything to say back. It wasn’t like he wanted to be completely silent either, even if it did feel like he was going to vomit from nerves. Hopefully though, Youngjae’s light snarkiness could win over Jaebum, and the two would fall in love and live happily ever--

“Ah, , I already messed up the first internet safety rule.” Jaebum hung his head, “Now you’re going to murder me and dump my body into the ocean...” He let out an exaggerated sigh, looking up at Youngjae through bangs that could use a trim, “At least let me enjoy a night out before killing me, please?” 

Youngjae had to stop himself from spitting coffee out of his mouth, or at the very least, stop it from dribbling out from between his lips. The way Jaebum was looking at him through his hair, a pleading look in his eyes. It was almost too much for Youngjae to handle and he was fairly sure today was actually the day Jaebum was going to be the death of him, just like every other day.

“I don’t know...” Youngjae finally croaked out, placing his drink down after calming himself down, “What will you do for me?” ‘Did I just say that? Oh God.’

Jaebum perked up, no longer looking up at him with those stupidly adorable eyes. “Take you with me, of course. Just show me the bars or clubs to go to, and leave the rest to me. I’ll also buy drinks.”

That sounded great, Youngjae thought, unfortunately this wasn’t a perfect world and he wasn’t 20 just yet. “I’m not 20, I can’t do any of that stuff yet.” 

The look on Jaebum’s face morphed from surprised to realization. “So that’s what the 96 meant on your handle...” He rubbed his temple with his left hand, frustrated with himself. “I’m not very sharp today, am I? My cool guy image that you had from Twitter is completely gone.” 

Youngjae had to admit, just from the past 10 minutes,every thing he thought he knew about Jaebum was proving to be false, except for the fact that the guy seemed to have an endless amount of earrings. He seemed to have different ones in every selca he tweeted, and the ones he was wearing now were ones Youngjae was seeing for the first time. Excluding that, Jaebum seemed to be a lot more comical than he appeared to be online.

Which only made him fall harder, if that was even possible at this point. 

“Well, you’ve had a long day coming down from Seoul and you haven’t touched your americano, so it makes sense why you aren’t feeling your best.” Youngjae eventually offered after realizing that his thoughts were taking over again. 

Jaebum pondered for a moment, squinting his eyes before nodding. “Yeah, that’s true.” Finally he took a hold of the mug and lifted it, and Youngjae felt as if a lot was riding on this. 

This was it.

The moment which would decide if Youngjae had awful taste in coffee or not. 

As Youngjae watched Jaebum take a sip and swallow, his eyes were temporarily drawn to his phone which had lit up. “Well...” Jaebum began after taking a sip, causing Youngjae’s attention to be drawn back. “It was,” He paused, either trying to find the correct word or torture him. Youngjae would come to learn that it was the latter, “Alright.”

That was it.

That was what he had taken more than 5 seconds to think of.

It was almost depressing, too, hearing that. 

Not even Jaebum’s lip could distract him from the fact that Youngjae had apparently bad taste in coffee. Sure, he had said ‘alright,’ instead of a much worse word but he couldn’t help but feel as if Jaebum was sugar coating it. 

Was he getting sad over something so petty?

Yeah, he was.

“But, that’s fine,” Jaebum brought Youngjae back out of his obsessed thoughts. “We can always go hunting for the perfect americano tomorrow.” 

Youngjae blinked, the words registering in his brain at a snails pace. The feeling from mere seconds ago disappeared and were replaced with a giddiness that he dared not show on his face because ‘remember, Youngjae, you are going to appear heteroual so you don’t scare him off!’ So to hide the foolish grin creeping up on his face, Youngjae lifted his coffee mug and took another gulp, nodding. “Sure, but only if you buy.” 

The last part slipped out, and just as he was about to correct himself, Youngjae noticed the amusement on Jaebum’s face. It was oddly comforting to know that he wasn’t ing up, and Jaebum seemed to take pleasure in his lack of formalities. 

“So, it’s a date, then?”